It is well known that with the purchase of any transportation vehicle comes the added expense to the owner or operator of maintaining that vehicle. This principle is noticeably applicable with respect to marine vessels. Maintenance includes cleaning, resurfacing, or conditioning the outside exterior of the marine vessel generally with a cleaning device having an elongated pole that includes an end opposite to a handle portion of the pole that does the cleaning. Although cleaning devices are primarily used in connection with maintenance of marine vessels and other vehicles, other known devices employ the same structural features used to maintain the exterior/interior of the marine vessel, e.g., paint brushes.
Cleaning and maintaining the exterior surface of the marine vessel, specifically washing or painting, is problematic for many users because of the size or cumbersome shape of most marine vessels. It is estimated that a dirty hull of a marine vessel can increase fuels costs up to about 30%. As such, the user is required to reach or extend the pole over larger surfaces to effectuate proper cleaning or maintenance of the marine vessel. In many instances, the use of the cleaning device results in damage to the boat because the user is often unbalanced or unstable. As the cost to repair most damage to a marine vessel is actually more than the cleaning or maintenance itself, preventing any damage to the marine vessel is very important for users. Also problematic for many users is when the cleaning device becomes dislodged from the user and falls into a body of water, causing the cleaning device to sink to the bottom thereof. As many marine vessels are docked in large bodies of water, retrieving the cleaning device becomes difficult if not impossible. As most of these cleaning devices are also costly to purchase, preserving the life of the cleaning device is also desired.
Most known cleaning devices consist of a metallic or rigid pole with a head located at the distal end of the pole. The head typically has a brush, bristles, or other protuberances coupled thereto. Some known cleaning devices place a raised surface, made typically of rubber, around the perimeter of the head to prevent damage, should the head contact the cleaning or contact surface of the vessel. These “cushioned” heads, however, do not prevent damage on the marine vessel from the pole of the cleaning device. As there are many portions on a marine vessel that require a user to navigate the pole around or across in order to reach a desired cleaning location, the pole tends to contact the surfaces or objects of the vessel. The consequences of this contact are dents, scratches, and other deformations or visual indications of a hard surface contacting a wood, fiberglass, or composite structure. These cushioned heads also do not inhibit the cleaning device from sinking in a usually less dense body of water.
Some other known cleaning devices include rubber grips located at the handle portion of the cleaning device. These devices, however, suffer from many of the above-described deficiencies. Chiefly, they do not provide protection at the head or distal end of the pole, where typically most of the contact occurs. Also, most, if not all, of these devices do not permit the rubber portion from being easily removed from the pole. As such, the user is limited to purchasing an entirely new cleaning device should the rubber portion become damaged. A user is also unable to retrofit pre-existing cleaning devices with protection. Furthermore, because many of these cleaning devices often require the head portion to be extended through use of the pole, most if not all known cleaning devices do not have the ability to protect the marine vessel from contact with the pole when the pole is extended. These cleaning devices also do not prevent a cleaning device from sinking in a body of water.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.